Free translation: "...it is with a salon in the social sense of the word as well as in the material sense, that it is enough to leave, as padding and proof of wealth, furniture one does not actually like, to make it horrible. Such a salon is like a work where one has not known to abstain from the sentences which demonstrate knowledge, brilliance, ease. Just like a book, like a house, the quality of a salon has sacrifice as its corner stone."

Editing applied to life.

The previous paragraph- and a substantial proportion of the book - is about snobbery, behaviour differences between the strata of society and the way choices are made as to whom one allows into one's life. Also how desire waxes and wanes - in this case sexual desire for a particular person.